I watched the election unfold with a pragmatic indifference most people find disgusting. Given the putrid state of politics I don't blame them — much. People were emotionally involved in the outcome. So much so that, according to a friend, there were students crying in the AMU during President Bush's acceptance speech on Nov. 3.

After "moral values" — or as Dems like to call it, homophobia — became the consensus pick among pundits for why Bush won, liberals everywhere rushed to disown their countrymen. I finally found a reason to be disgusted.

After being chided for months about not paying close enough to the very important opinions of foreigners, for not wanting to work together with them and for not wanting to establish a culture of understanding, liberals are considering loading up the VW van and heading for Canada. How easily they forgot the most important perceptions of America are those held by the people living in it — the people that have a vote equal to theirs.

There are two modes of left-wing thought emerging from the election. First, it isn't the southerner's fault he or she was bamboozled by Bush. Bush lied and pulled the wool over their feeble eyes. The implication is clear — people who voted for the incumbent can be forgiven not because their opinion is valid and matters, but because they're morons and can't be held accountable for their own stupidity. Amidst all the Bible thumping, the heightened blood pressure has damaged their brains.

Second, they know exactly what they are doing. They are trying to impose Evangelical Christian values about marriage on the rest of the country. Of course they are. If a person believes whole-heartedly in God and that that immutable God has a message for them about the way the world was intended to be, it can be pretty hard to separate that belief from ones own actions. Nay, it should be pretty hard. After all, what's the point if believing in a higher power that has a will only to ignore said will.

I may think religion is a pernicious fraud, but until the Supreme Court or — more preferably for judicial conservatives — a constitutional amendment gives gays the right to marry, the Evangelicals have the right to shape public policy based on what they believe to be divine direction.

This could have been avoided if Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) had picked an issue, any issue, other than "Bush is Bad" that appealed to Evangelicals sense of moral righteousness. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the first thing on every Evangelical's mind is probably not how to keep men from kissing.

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